Tommy Karevik was so kind to talk with Kamelot Germany before the concert in Geiselwind in Nomveber 2012. The interview turned out rather long, so I hope everyone brought some time and the will to read. If you want to hear Tommy talk about perfection, accidents, fans, life on tour, musicals, feeling like an idiot and lots more – keep reading.

Kamelot Germany: Five months ago you were announced as the new singer of Kamelot. How do you feel looking back at 2012 so far?

Tommy Karevik: It has really been a big change in every aspect of my life. I was coming from not playing so many shows and mostly working in the studio and also working as a firefighter. Now I have this part-time job as a musician, traveling around, meeting new people, playing in front of thousands of people, doing many more shows then I’ve ever done before. It’s really a big difference and it’s a big challenge, but I think for me, it’s something I really want to do. I can feel it. You can’t even compare it to 2011, it’s a new start for a big part of my life.

KG: When you told your family and friends that you were going to join Kamelot, how did they react?

TK: It’s not really black or white here, it was like two years or 1 ½ years at least, when everything was kinda floating in the air and of course everyone was asking me like every week ‘Any news, any news, any news?’. So everyone was basically in on it for a long time. Of course, when you are not in the very situation that you have to make a decision on your own, people will always say ‘Yeah, go for it, do it. You only have on life!’. They don’t count in everything else, as when you are the one who’s being asked. But I had a lot of time to think and talk to my friends, to Silvia, my band mates in Seventh Wonder and everyone approved. I really wanted to do it, so everyone was happy in the end. I know it’s really stressful for Silvia when I’m away for such a long time and it’s stressful for me too, but we’ve been together for 8 years, going on to 9, so we know each other and trust each other. We have been through a lot together already, eight years are eight years. We know that we have each other, so it’s not going to be a problem.

KG: How long did it take to really settle into the Kamelot family? I hope the guys didn’t give you a too hard time!

TK: No, no, no. They have been amazing, it has been really easy for me. It was different during the European Tour in 2011 as the backup singer. There was a lot on the bands mind regarding Roy and the tour with Fabio. Since becoming a full time member everything is more focused on me as the singer and it’s working out just fine. It’s really good.

KG: How does it feel to step into the center of the universe, giving autographs, taking pics with fans non-stop?

TK: I already experienced this a little bit with Seventh Wonder, so it was not all new, but this is of course a lot bigger. I think it was good I had a little bit of training beforehand. I really enjoy it, and meeting people is the most fun part aside being on stage. They are the reason why you are in this position in the first place. Without them you wouldn’t be able to see all those places, to play all this music for all these people, so I’m very, very happy about it. Fantastic in every sense.

KG: What was the most crazy thing you had to sign yet?

TK: A car.

KG: Yes, I saw pictures of that!

TK: The hood of a sports car. I think it was in Austin, Texas. That was really a milestone. She said she was planning to remove the hood and put it on a wall.

KG: She wants to do that?

TK: Yeah.

KG: Wow.

TK: She wants to seal the signatures with some kind of coating. That’s crazy. So if you see a hood-less car in Austin, Texas, you know that’s it, that’s the one. (laughs)

KG: There is tons of praise for you and the band out there, but of course there are always some people who have to complain. Are you following the reactions of the people on the internet?

TK: Yes, of course. I think it’s nice to read both. Of course I know that it cannot all be good, it doesn’t matter who the new singer would be, what he would look like or how good he would sing. Of course there are people complaining about me being similar to Roy, but on the other hand if I wasn’t similar to Roy, there would be a lot of people complaining about that too.

KG: Maybe even more.

TK: Maybe even more, because you see, the Tarja and Anette situation was completely different and she got a lot of shit for that and the band too. I just try to carry on the legacy that already exists. A lot of things that Roy sang or wrote were actually called for in the music and I would probably have written the same or close to it at least. The vibe in the music is already there, you just have to follow it and it would be strange if I sang a bunch of Seventh Wonder stuff above this kind of music, you know?

KG: Yes, but that’s what some people were expecting, even that it makes no sense. It doesn’t fit.

TK: Yeah, that would be like Seventh Wonder all over again. But… nah, I’m really happy we did it this way. I’m sure a lot of people are eased into the new era since I do the old songs like Roy did them and the new songs have a touch of the old Kamelot as well. I cannot see that we could have done it differently.

KG: Kamelot’s new album “Silverthorn” is out since a couple of weeks. And may I say it turned out absolutely amazing! It has been said that you wrote most of the lyrics and the vocal lines yourself, which is great in my opinion. What did you do to match the sound and feel of Kamelot so well? It sounds like you did this forever!

TK: I just try to follow the mood. I listened to all the Kamelot records to get a feel on how it’s build up, how the lyrics are structured and then I just tried to rely on my own sense of melody. It wasn’t the goal to make it sound exactly like before, I wanted to add something new, but I also wanted to keep that resemblance of the old stuff so that people feel familiar with the music and the material. I think that was an important part. And then I had some help of course from the guys in the band and Sascha (Paeth, producer). They directed me a little bit in the beginning to make it really Kamelot, since I’m so new to the band and I didn’t really listen to much Kamelot in the past years. I think all of that together was the recipe that ended up in the new album.

KG: What are the main differences in writing lyrics and vocal lines for Kamelot in comparison to Seventh Wonder?

TK: In Seventh Wonder I do most of it on my own. From playing with happy themes to major scale things; I do all that ad-lib stuff and this pop vocal thing where you play with your voice a little bit. I don’t do that so much in Kamelot because it’s not called for in the music. The lyrics and the melodies are also much darker and not so playful.

KG: In Kamelot or Seventh Wonder?

TK: In Kamelot the vocals are not so playful when it comes to the melody, but more with the expression. So I would say it’s really different. I mean, I totally get when people say ‘Oh Tommy is singing on that album, but he has much more potential’ or whatever, but that’s not what it’s about, to show your whole potential in every single song. The goal is to make the listener feel what you feel, not just to do a roller-coaster of melodies.

KG: Some people also say this because you’re not using your whole range, like singing as high as in Seventh Wonder.

TK: But that’s also a misconception, if you try to sing along to some of the songs you will realize how hard it is. It doesn’t sound so high, but when you try to sing it you’re going to have a hard time.

KG: Like somebody said, just because it sounds easy, it doesn’t mean it is easy.

TK: I have trouble myself to sing some of the songs, it is more difficult than it sounds.

KG: I read that the concept of the album was mostly your idea. How did you come up with it?

TK: It was Thomas and me at first. We talked about it long before it was decided that I would become the new singer. It was based on some Jekyll & Hyde thing, but as it turned out we found a story of our own that we thought was even better and it was something original. Now we could decide what’s going to happen or not within the story. That evolved when I was in Germany with Sascha. Him and me wrote some material there, we checked with Thomas and he contributed some of his own ideas. So it was mainly us three, Sascha, Thomas and me that developed the whole concept. A lot of it was created in Germany.

KG: Since the original story was not so detailed and Amanda Somerville added a lot of details to the overall story while writing the book for Silverthorn, I was wondering if the cello was part of the original idea?

TK: That was part of the original story, which we wrote. The idea of the cello was one of the key points, as you can hear throughout the album, there is a key melody coming back all the time and it also appears on the hidden track with the cello.

KG: I find it interesting that the Seventh Wonder song “King Of Whitewater” features a violin, while on “Silverthorn” a cello has a prominent role. Coincidence?

TK: I don’t know, maybe it’s not a coincidence, I really like the sound of it. It’s a beautiful instrument, it fits with the time when the story is taking place. There were a lot of factors why we wanted it to be a cello. It’s beautiful to look at, it’s also beautiful to listen to. It stands out on it’s own and it’s really like a piece of art in a way. I think we decided on the cello pretty early.

KG: You have a talent for writing super heartbreaking stories. Just look at Mercy Falls and now Silverthorn. Do you like to break your listeners hearts?

TK: (sheepishly) Yes. Next question.

KG: (laughs)

TK: No, no, no. (laughs) I’m looking for these kind of stories that you can relate to first of all, but there is also nothing better than to portray a feeling whether it’s happy or sad or really heartbreaking. It’s much easier to get into singing when you have some kind of emotion to feed from. It just turns out that way and I don’t know why. I want it to be a roller-coaster of emotions, sometimes it’s sad and sometimes it’s happy. In Seventh Wonder it’s mostly about happier themes, except for Mercy Falls (the complete story). In Kamelot the happiness is not really existing in the music, it’s not really that uplifting.

KG: I don’t know, I think it’s kind of a mix, it’s sad but uplifting in a strange way. You listen to the album and it’s sad, but you feel good about it.

TK: Oh yeah, that’s a thing that we didn’t do on purpose. There is just one song, “My Confession” that is supposed to be a little bit more uplifting.

KG: But not the lyrics, just the music.

TK: That’s kinda what we heard from people when we did the video for the song. That one guy said ‘I can hear the lyrics and the music and they are not doing the same thing.’ Thinking about it, “Solitaire” has an uplifting feeling too.

KG: Which elements in the music of Kamelot do you like most?

TK: I would like to say the expressiveness. The important thing is that you express what you sing. Everyone in the band is jumping around, interacting, so it would be really strange if I didn’t feel and portray the music while singing. I think that Kamelot is a really nice band to watch live since so much is happening on stage all the time. I like the interaction between the crowd and the band, that’s not there for most other bands. Many bands don’t even look at their audience and just stare at their instruments.

KG: That can be nice too. For prog music it’s totally fine.

TK: It’s fine because you have to concentrate, but it would never be as fun to watch live. If you want to have a party you’re not going to a prog concert, you are going to watch Kamelot or another band that… moves on stage. I love prog too, I am in a prog band. I actually believe that we are starting to loosen up a little bit in Seventh Wonder on stage and get more interactive.

KG: It was pretty good in Milan.

TK: Yeah? Well, but we can never jump around, run around, fool around too much, since the music is too complicated and it would end bad. For a prog band to play bad is not an option.

KG: The Sacrimony video is absolutely amazing. How was the experience to shoot it with all the blue screen/green screen?

TK: Yes, we had blue screen. I’d never done anything like it. Of course I did the Alley Cat video with Seventh Wonder, but that was more of an amateurish video shoot.

KG: It was nice.

TK: It’s really nice and we got really good help from Johan Larsson, who did everything. But this video shoot with Kamelot was another level. We had a director, Ivan, he had everything pictured in his head before we started. His job was to get us to do all the things he wanted us to do, so he could put it in the video and make animations around it. It was like…. you felt like a complete idiot, crawling around on the floor… for me it was totally new.

The guys already did this before and they also have instruments to hide behind, but I had nothing. Not even a microphone.

I will never forget that first thing the director said to me: ‘Tommy! Go and watch the screen!’

So I went to the screen and he did all the stuff he wanted me to do himself – in one take. He even did all the slow motion things on his own and everything was already perfect. Perfect! In one take! That was the moment when I started to get really nervous. How am I supposed to do this? I will never forget that. But then it was really good, he worked with me and told me what to do and praised me when he liked what I did.

That’s also something people don’t understand, this is what he did with Roy. This is what he did with me. Of course we’re going to look similar on the video. It’s not that I am trying to copy, you know?

KG: It looks similar because it’s the style of the director?

TK: Yes. That’s what Ivan does. He really makes you pour out your heart and there are only so many styles how you can do that.

(Screenshot Official Video “Sacrimony (Angel Of Afterlife)”

KG: My favorite kind of music videos is when the band members get involved in the story/acting within a video, like Kamelot’s “Rule The World” video. “Sacrimony” didn’t go that far, would you mind doing something like that in the future?

TK: Yes, that would be awesome. I loved doing the acting, that was super challenging. It also released something in me, because I realized I can do this.

It was super ‘peinlich’ (embarrassing), all the band members are standing there, you are standing there in this big blue room, the music is on, the director is showing you how to do all the moves and you are trying to follow and do your own interpretation of it.

So many people standing there, just watching, everything is bathed in bright light. It’s horrible, horrible! You cannot have stage-fright if you want to do that. I’m just happy it turned out so cool.

KG: Have you ever fancied thinking about appearing in something like a musical, or maybe theater?

TK: That would be awesome, doing this in a professional organization, maybe doing one or two shows a day. Performing with Kamelot has made me appreciate the work of actors in musicals a lot more. It’s really hard to move and sing at the same time, which people often don’t realize, I think. It’s much easier to stand on your feet, having the right posture and sing good, but as soon as you are going to crawl on the floor or move around the voice turns out different. I have huge respect for the people who do this for a living. I really would like to do that because it’s the next step of doing things.

KG: Do you have a dream role or a musical you would like to do?

TK: Yes, but I don’t have the right voice for it. The first musical that I went to with my mom was The Phantom Of The Opera and I was really blown away. By the mood, by the actors, by the singing and the songs, but that would be way over my head. Maybe a musical like Rent? Rent is awesome, I like the music and the mood also. Jesus Christ Superstar or Chess. Something like that.

KG: You are touring now almost non-stop since the beginning of September. What was the most memorable moment/event during the tours?

TK: Mmh, wow, it’s been so long now. The most memorable things are good crowds of course, but also when something extraordinary happens, like when you hurt yourself or something happens, that is not supposed to happen. On every tour something bad has to happen in my experience. On the first tour I burned my face in the pyros, on the second tour which was now in the US, I fell off the stage with my head first from like 1 ½ meters, straight onto the concrete. That was in Tempe/Arizona, I think. And now I almost put my teeth out because of the micro-stand (during sound-check)… stuff like that you always remember, because it snaps you out of the routine. The last show in Orlando was amazing, we joined Nightwish on stage and fooled around a little bit. But in general it was just so nice, it was like a victory for me to even complete this first real tour in North America, to say I did it: First tour, 31 shows in a row.

KG: How’s life on tour? Did you already get used to it?

TK: Yeah. I mean – you have to adapt really fast. The thing is, you really need to have your routines. At least I feel that I have to. You have to go to bed at a certain point, get up at a certain point, eat, you have to do all this little routines, so you know that at the end of the day you are going to sing and perform good. We have thirteen shows already done on this tour and just seven to go. So far we had a good time every night, even that sometimes you feel like shit. It’s draining, really draining, even that you are not on stage more than 1 ½ hours every night. But you have to warm up for sound check, then you have sound check, then you have to warm up for the show, then you do the show, then you have to calm down afterwards. So many things that people don’t realize, when they just see their favorite band come out on stage and then they go home. But now I start to feel in my body that I’ve been touring for kind of a long time. I really want to go to the gym, I want to eat healthy food, sleep at normal times, go to work. It’s going to be good to be back in a week, but I still have lots of killer shows to go.

KG: Your performance on stage develops with light speed. Please tell me the secret how you do this!

TK: I don’t even know if I develop anything, I just try not to think too much about it. Every night is different, I don’t do the same poses at the same times. There are some key points were we all in the band know what to do, to not make it too static. We just try to have a good time. On my behalf I just try to have fun and show that I like to do this, you know? I don’t think too much about certain poses, I just try to live it out fully on stage. So maybe it’s the familiarity of being on stage so many times now, so I can relax a little bit and just let it roll on stage.

KG: Big stage/small stage. What do you prefer personally?

TK: It’s so different. Small stages can be really nice because then you are close to the people and people get a more exclusive experience. But at the same time it’s wonderful to play before 35.000 people at Masters Of Rock, where everyone is shouting. It’s just an unbelievable feeling. Sometimes with small stages you have to adapt and those can be killer shows and sometimes a big stage is awesome, because you can run around and you can do everything you want. I think for a band like Kamelot big stages are great. I’m used to the small stages, so now I can do both. I think I don’t prefer anything, I just take it for what it is.

(Köln/Germany 2012 – Photographer: Frank Alf)

KG: When being on tour you can get sick easily. I heard it did happen on the NA tour too. How is it possible to bring such an amazing performance every night despite how you feel? When I feel sick all I want to do is hide in my bed and never come out again.

TK: Yes of course, we also want to. (laughs) You really have to get yourself going, because people are paying to come to the shows. Even that you are not feeling well people still expect a good show. The most difficult part is to sing when you are sick, because you are not supposed to, it’s not good for the voice. So, when I normally get sick, when I’m home, I shut up for two weeks and then I start to sing again. But on the North American tour, for example, when I got sick, I had to sing seven nights in a row with a cold. At the last show I had no voice at all. You have to push your vocal chords to a limit where they’re not able to move anymore. When you try to sing all those high notes when the vocal chords are not moving, it’s not going to work. They are a muscle, they have to move to make… noise, so that was horrible. But we had a good show anyway, because the crowd was great.

KG: I haven’t heard anything negative from people who went to the concerts, not even that one.

TK: It’s also a matter of how you embrace the situation, I think. If I would’ve been grumpy or if I would show that it’s hurtful to sing, then it would probably project on the people, but now we just had a good time and had a laugh and everyone was singing the songs so it was fun anyway. You have to really not take it too seriously which I tend to do otherwise. I tend to…well, if I can’t hit one note, just one note during the whole concert, being out of tune – I think about it all the time. You cannot do that for a whole tour, though. Of course there will be notes who are fucked up, of course you’re going to have troubles in the songs, you’re going to forget lyrics or whatever. It’s not the end of the world. When people are having fun, that’s the most important thing, that they go home from the concert and that they had a good overall experience. It’s not about one note, the note is gone as soon as you took it. End of story. (laughs) That’s hard for me to accept as a perfectionist.

KG: That was actually a later question, I wanted to ask. That people call you a perfectionist and if it’s true.

TK: Who calls me that?

KG: I don’t remember, I think I read it in some interviews, regarding working in the studio. The comments were meant in a positive way, of course.

TK: In the past it had been both negative and positive since I could never settle for anything else but what I wanted, so it took some time, a long time. I was like ‘No, no, that’s not right.’ and people said ‘Hey that’s great, what are you aiming for?’. I always had trouble with people telling me ‘Now it’s good, it’s good.’ I could never relax before ‘I’ felt it was good. But it was different with this Kamelot album, actually. There I was in the hands of Sascha and the guys there, and when they said ‘No, no, this is good. This is good. This is what we are looking for.’, then I just had to embrace it, even that I was not always sure myself. I had to trust them, because first of all we had only this short amount of time to do the record and also because of the time away from work and everything. So we really had to settle for… ‘good’, and I couldn’t work until it was perfect since there wasn’t enough time.

KG: That’s why making a Seventh Wonder album takes a lot longer. (laughs)

TK: Seventh Wonder albums will always be perfect. (laughs) No, no – on my behalf I mean. The one thing I learned, the biggest thing I learned on this recording with Sascha was that sometimes perfect is not really perfect. Sometimes it’s good to have this little flaws that makes it human and that’s what makes it even better than to have the perfect note. You can settle for a note that has some kind of humanity in it. I work towards perfection when I work on my own and I never considered this an option before.

KG: But that’s sometimes a problem, especially for prog bands, that they are too technically perfect and then…

TK: … they lose their soul.

KG: How does it feel to come back home from a long tour like the NA tour? Is it hard to adjust to real life again?

TK: Well… no. I think I have been living my life until this point in a certain way, it’s not going to feel strange to come home. Of course I have, like always when I played with Seventh Wonder or whatever and I come home from shows, a slight depression. Only for a day or so. I don’t know why, but it’s like your mind has been so set on something and then suddenly it’s not there anymore. So that takes a couple of hours or one day until it’s over. Maybe depression is the wrong word, it’s more like an emptiness. It actually took a couple of days after the North America Tour to find the power to do something else again. It’s probably going to be the same thing with the European Tour.

KG: That outfit you wear on the European tour looks incredible. Who designed it?

TK: It was a girl called Scarlet from Finland. She made the pants out of a pair of black jeans that I already had and altered them to look really cool. Scarlet also sew the jacket, or the shirt that I have out of my measurements only. She’s really good and I think it really adds to the show. Now I even got two jackets, one of them is based on the G-Star jacket that I own, but we are probably going to save those for the DVD shoot.

(Stuttgart/Germany 2012 – Photographer: Heiko Bendigkeit)

KG: How would you describe your singing style?

TK: Oh. (silence) I don’t know. My singing style is so different from what I do in Seventh Wonder in comparison to Kamelot.

KG: But some people think you have to have a style. And then they complain why you are not singing in your own style.

TK: Oh yeah, but you have to adapt your style to the music you are playing, in my opinion. That’s what makes a really good singer. Like when you play country, you should sing country. You have to be versatile. A good singer should be able to chameleon-like sing all kinds of music. So I wouldn’t say I have a style, but my style when singing in Seventh Wonder, is a mix of listening to a lot of Russell Allen, Jorn Lande, Queen, Michael Jackson and Celine Dion. Everything I listened to when I grew up, same with musicals. All of this balled together into one.

I really liked Jorn Lande for a long time, I still do. I never had that type of voice, but I can adapt his technique when he’s doing the wailings and things like that. I got a lot from him. The roughness is something he naturally has in his voice, so I’m not trying to sound like him, just borrowing the things that I think are cool. I just take whatever I can find in other singers that I like, like an expression and adapt it to my own singing. So I guess I have a lot of different styles in my singing and in the end it’s just that I sing from inside and what comes out comes out. But yeah, I think those are the main influences.

I don’t like classical singing so much. There are no such influences in my singing. Of course I did sing the intro of “Prodigal Son” on the new CD, but we just did it because it was called for due to the funeral scene. Usually it’s not really my style and I wouldn’t choose to sing like this otherwise. I like the rockish vocals, the melodic things.

(Köln/Germany 2012 – Photographer: Frank Alf)

KG: Paul Ablaze (Blackguard) is singing the harsh vocals for March Of Mephisto on the Euro tour. Have you ever tried singing like that yourself?

TK: No. I can do a little bit of the distorted things, but when I do that it’s with the note, you can hear what note it is. And it’s almost always in the higher register. I think that I would probably mess up my voice from trying to do that, at least after a while.

KG: I sometimes wonder if singing like that can hurt the vocal chords.

TK: I don’t think it does for him, but he doesn’t have to take care of his singing voice so much. I know only one singer aside from Alissa (White-Gluz/The Agonist), who can sing clean and growls, so no, I never really tried it, it’s not for me I think.

KG: Do you do any special things to warm up your voice before a concert or how do you keep it up in shape in general?

TK: Well, I don’t think I keep it in shape (cough).

KG: Don’t you have to do that?

TK: I have to do that, I have to do a lot of things, but I don’t have a clue how to do it. The things I’ve learned so far are: Don’t eat before you go to bed, drink a lot of water of course, don’t try your voice out all the time during the day and before the show. Many people are going to the bathroom, as an example, singing, thinking ‘Shit, I couldn’t reach that note!’ and then start thinking about it, all day, try to sing, get hoarse and then the voice is out. Just rely on that you can sing. Warm up slowly, I think that’s the best way. Don’t drink alcohol, don’t smoke, sleep long. I think that is it, that’s what I do.

The most important thing in every aspect of singing is that you have to be prepared. That’s at least what I think. You have to sing a lot before a tour. You cannot go on a tour and sing the first show without having sung regularly before. When you lose your voice on the first show, what are you going to do regarding the rest of the shows? So for me the key is to start really early before a tour. Sing every other day a little bit, then you increase the dose, sing more every other day, then you sing every day for a couple of days. Have one day off, then sing every day again. It’s almost like work-out, you know? It’s a muscle and it must be used to singing. That I think is THE most important thing for singers to understand. You have to practice.

For this tour (the European Tour) I didn’t have the time. I got home from the US and was still sick, so I had two weeks of silence and then this tour started. It was much harder this time than on the last tour to keep the voice in shape. I know the voice is there, but it’s not at the top of my game on every song. If I was quiet for two weeks and then sang one show it would probably be really good, but when I sing all the time it takes a little off of the high and a little bit off of the low, the only thing I can be sure of is to have the range in between. It’s kinda hard to explain. It’s like you are in good shape, but not in your best shape, since you have to use your voice all, all, all the time. For me to have a crystal clear sound I have to really rest and prepare properly.

KG: It’s the perfectionist speaking again.

TK: People may not hear it so much, but I can feel it when I sing. You have to push a little bit more than usually, because the vocal chords are maybe a little bit swollen. You have to push a little bit more than you usually do, to give it a little bit more strength, but you really have to be a singer to know the difference, so it’s cool.

(Stuttgart/Germany 2012 – Photographer: Heiko Bendigkeit)

KG: Seventh Wonder are making a new CD at the moment. Do you know when you will have time to join them in the studio?

TK: Directly when I get back home. I will try to take the spring to write for the new album and then maybe record it in the autumn, or late summer so that we will have at least a 2013 release. That’s what we are aiming for. But then again we don’t know how to release it yet – which label, or if we will release it ourselves maybe.

KG: Aren’t you with Lion Music anymore?

TK: No, we don’t have a contract with them at the moment. It’s an exciting time, lots of stuff happening. And of course there will be more Kamelot tours next year, so I really don’t know when I’m going to be home.

KG: What are your hopes and wishes for the future?

TK: I hope… for peace on earth? (laughs) I hope… I REALLY hope that I get to do this for as long as I think it’s fun and that my body and voice are staying strong. Writing good music, enjoying it, meeting good people, playing for the people that love what I do, getting the positive energy back. I know this is something many people would like to do, but they never get the chance, so I know I’m really fortunate in this aspect.

Just keep on doing what I like to do and that the people that I love really accept it, that’s my biggest wish. To be able to combine all the parts of my life like I do it now, which is quite a cool thing, even though it’s very exhausting sometimes.

KG: Now it’s time for the famous last words. Anything you would like to say to the fans?

TK: What I really want to do is to thank the people that accept me as the new singer and I want you guys to know that I really, really appreciate all the positive feedback and the support from every single one of you guys. I read everything, I go on my facebook page and although I don’t reply to most of it since it’s so much, I really take it to my heart. Without you guys it wouldn’t be so easy to do this. So, thank you!